From 1956, may I present: "Tough Kid From Brooklyn ( Spit And The Stars)" by author Robert Mende?Surely, a book with such an attractive title just begs to be read!
How could anyone resist the intense Brooklyn drama of tough guy Gregg and his dame Dinah?
"No One On Banner Street Could Break the Stranglehold That Bound Them To Poverty And Vice. Gregg Watched The Guy drop then turned. Another mug was beating a gal who had no face, just blood- it was Dinah, his Dinah! Gregg had to win, had to lift himself and his girl out of the brutality and degradation around them before it was too late..."
There are still some rare copies floating around on the internet... If you are lucky to own one of them, could I please borrow it? I simply must find out if Gregg and Dinah ever broke free of the poverty and vice and moved to a split level house on Long Island!
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22 comments:
Every so often, I scan the net hoping to get a glimpse of Robert Mende. He was a wonderful man. It always makes me smile to see his name. By the time I "met" Robert, he was already in his 70's. He sent me a beautiful personal story which I want to share with you.
Robert Mende
Our Scars Are Our Medals
(For my father: Born December 6, 1893, died September 6, 1951)
Missing, dramas.
One fingernail was missing from the third finger of my father’s right hand.
I asked him as a kid, “How did it happen, Pop?”
He looked down ashamed and was silent.
“How, Pop?”
“It was a long time ago,” he shrugged. My father had small shoulders. He knew it. His shrug worked higher than most shrugs, so high, his shrug soft of earmuffed.
“How, Pop?”
My father gave me another earmuff shrug.
I wouldn’t be shrugged off. The difference between age and youth is youth holds on to a question, “How, Pop?”
“Why do you need to know what happened long ago?”
“How, Pop?”
He shook his bald head, “Foolishness.”
“How, Pop?”
We carry the most in the least or it’s never most. He said one word, “Sleep.”
It happened when he was eleven. He was an apprentice tailor in the Old Country. It was towards night. He had been working for ten hours on a sewing machine. He felt sleepy. He dosed for a moment. The sewing machine needle went through and through his finger.
A wound, schools; all else is recess.
The greatest lesson in life is the same lesson has different lives.
To my father the missing fingernail was a symbol of foolishness, of childishly giving into sleep. He nicknamed his third finger with its missing nail, “my nahrish finger” (nahrish means foolish).
For the rest of his life, he fought sleep. He won. He slept little. He fooled sleep until his final sleep.
To me my father’s missing fingernail was injustice and justice. The injustice was in a child having to work long hours. The justice was in beauty’s dilemma: our scars are our medals.
Whenever my father would finish creating or repairing a garment that took great skill and effort, he would unconsciously rub his nahrish finger.
I had a regret.
Our family expressed our affection openly. We hugged and kissed. But kisses were confined to faces.
I never kissed my father’s hand.
I never kissed my father’s nahrish finger.
If life give you a nahrish wound, may you find the beauty in it and feel it being kissed.
Dear Debbie,
Thank you so very much for sharing. It is just lovely.
With your permission, I will make a post out of it. It is just too beautiful a story not to have others enjoy as well.
If you have time, maybe you could give us a bit more background on Mende?
I would like that very much.
hi ...
I came across your blog while searching for mendes' "tough guy" - I would just like to say that this book is one of those that defined me. I remember reading it over and over again when I was 10 or 12 ...
oh, maybe it's worth mentioning - I read it in slovenian translation; at that time (cca. 1985) we lived in yugoslavia. the book title was (roughly) "boy from brooklyn"; it was translated to slovenian in 1962 (only a couple of years afetr original publishing!) and was - probably due to it's "class struggle theme" - one of the few american books translated in those "hard-core communist" times.
for me, still one of the best books of this genre ever.
:)!
Hi Ponpet,
After reading your comment and the others left here, I will have to get my hands on a copy of the book.
Interesting that it would have been a hit in Communist Yugoslavia, but I guess it makes sense.
K.
well, since the '50s the communsim in yugoslavia was more like, well, "communism" ... though, we liked it when one of americans was "exposing the ruthlessnes and injustice of american imperialism" ;-)
and yes - I am doing exactly what you say you will: trying to get me a copy of it (for nostalgia's sake. and for the kids when i will have them).
and if I find two copies of this book in slovenian, I will contact you again (and send you one :-) ...)
That is so sweet. Thank you very much.
I should find out if the book was ever translated into German, my native language.
haha, again, this book was obviously a big hit in the eastern block ...
it was published in the fifties in the DDR as "Spucke und Sterne" (Volk und Welt Verlag)
http://www.amazon.de/Spucke-Sterne-Robert-Mende/dp/B0000BLHBR
http://tinyurl.com/dexcgb
That is wild.
The German title translates into : 'Spit and stars.'
That is so far removed from Tough Kid.
they obviously took the subtitle "spit and the stars" (written in a really tiny font under the "brookyln" on the original cover) ...
:-)
happy bookhunting!
Right now, quite accidentally, I found your very interesting blog. I own a copy of this Robert Mende's novel translated into Polish by Malgorzata Szercha and published in 1951 in Poland by Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczyunder the title "Bruk i gwiazdy". A couple of years ago I found that book in a stock of paper waste. The book looks like an old manusctript from the Gutenberg era, however the novel itself is a masterpiece of a socially involved literature and is favourably distinguishable from between thousands of mass-produced American pattern novels of the last two decades. In the great style written novel! Best regards from Poland.
Way after the other posts, but in case someone stumbles across this it should be known that the original title of the book is "Spit and the Stars". Avon retitled it "Tough Kid from Brooklyn" for their abridged paperback edition.
Ha, I almost like that title better. Thanks for the info.
Dear Katia, I'm sorry I never came back to give you more information about Robert Mende. I'm sorry to say I have only a little more to add. I "met" Robert Mende completely by chance. I wrote down my memory. He was quite unforgettable. I actually wrote the memory down in a letter to a friend. I ended up posting it on my blog and I've shared it with as many people as I can. I don't want Robert Mende to be forgotten. He is not a footnote. He is worth remembering. He also wrote a book of poetry called Once Over, Lightly. You may be able to find a copy somewhere. His work is not in demand sadly. Here is the link to my memory of Robert Mende: http://wp.me/p3NusX-L
Actually I am just reading the novel in Hungarian, and yes I found it worthy. I parallel I got very curious about the author and the reason why I don't find any decent information about him. I am glad to see you people are trying to keep his memory, I like the stories you shared. I have a Hungarian translation from 1960 if anyone needs. :)
Hello again... I don't know if you caught this article, but the New York Times ran a contest using the book cover of "A Tough Kid from Brooklyn." The contest asked readers to write the first paragraph of the novel based on the cover. The NYT then followed up with a brief article about Robert Mende. You can read it here: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/12/24/book-behind-pulp-fiction-contest-hides-a-respectable-past/
Very coo. Thanks for letting me know.
I acttually stumbled upon this book in my school library in slovenia so i decided to google it if its worth reading...if its really this cool i definetly have to read it
Kelly, if you are indeed in Brooklyn (possibly Caroll Gardens?), I have a copy and am in Greenwood. Happy to pass it along.
That is amazing. Thanks for offering, I don’t really need a copy. Just loved the title. Btw, I am in Carroll Gardens.
I found your blog while researching this book, so it's already a win before I even read a page. I picked it out of a giveaway box on the street, intrigued by the title. Ran across this post when I was online trying to get more info on the book or Mendes because it's got a handwritten note from the author on the title page, clearly dedicated to his editor. I was hoping to try and figure out who that was and see if she or her family would like to have the book. But no luck tracking who it could have been from a first name alone as she, as are most editors, is not recorded anywhere. But at least now I've discovered a fun blog to follow!
That makes we very happy. Thanks.
Hi, guys!
If somebody still wants an e-version of the book, it's been posted here:
https://forum.mobilism.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=4299202
The book was made electronically by a person know under the name of "Jerry eBooks" in 2015 in the ePub format.
Happy(?) reading
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